Dates: Jan. 24-31, 2013 Purpose: “Attended meetings with Chinese government officials and business leaders regarding trade issues and American business opportunities in China.” Spouse along?: No Sponsor: National Committee on U.S.-China Relations Total cost: $7,907 Destination: Baltimore

Blunt took one trip

Only one other southwest Missouri lawmaker has taken a privately funded trip in the last two years. Sen. Roy Blunt, R-Mo., traveled to Sea Island, Ga., for a conference hosted by the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative-leaning Washington think tank. Blunt said he gave a talk to the other attendees and it was a good opportunity to exchange ideas with other policymakers and business leaders. But, he said, “I’ve taken very few of those kinds of trips. ... Members that do travel need to be sure they can fully defend any outside group that’s involved.” Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo., said she has gone to Iraq and Afghanistan on official trips organized by the Senate Armed Services Committee and paid for by taxpayers. But she has generally declined privately funded trips. “I’m sure that most of them are fine,” she said. “I just have chosen not to participate in that.”

By the numbers

8 Number of trips taken by Billy Long in 2012-13 that were paid for by private groups 6Number of members of Congress who took more privately funded trips $788 Least expensive trip, to Boston $17,660 Most expensive trip, to Istanbul, Turkey $46,960 Total cost of privately funded trips for Billy Long in 2012-13 (ranks 20th among members of Congress)

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WASHINGTON — A few months ago, Rep. Billy Long and his wife Barbara boarded a flight to Azerbaijan, where the Springfield Republican was shuttled to meetings with Azerbaijani political leaders, Western businessmen, and tourist sites in Baku, the country’s capital.

Long and his wife stayed at the Four Seasons, a luxury hotel on the Caspian Sea, and they dined at upscale restaurants — with the $13,500 tab for their journey paid by Azpod, an Azerbaijani company.

This was one of eight privately funded trips Long took in 2012 and 2013, making him one of Congress’ top travelers over that period, according to a Gannett Washington Bureau analysis of data from Political MoneyLine, a nonpartisan service that tracks campaign contributions and other financial disclosures.

Long strongly defended his travel, saying the trips have helped him become more informed about a whole range of international and domestic issues — and therefore better able to serve his constituents when he votes on key issues.

“It’s important for members of Congress to travel. We make decisions about the world,” Long said. “Anytime you do something like that, you’re picking up knowledge that’s going to help you in your career as a congressman.”

All of Long’s trips were approved by the House Ethics Committee. And the GOP lawmaker is hardly the only one taking advantage of offers that pour in from outside groups for free travel. Six members of Congress took more trips than Long; five others took the same number as him.

Overall, 371 members of Congress took more than $3.7 million worth of free trips last year — the highest price tag for privately funded travel in more than a decade, the new data show.

Most of the privately funded travel by lawmakers was paid for by charitable or educational groups, the result of an array of ethics rules approved in 2007 after ex-lobbyist Jack Abramoff admitted trading gifts and luxury trips for official favors. The rules, aimed at clamping down on pricey, lobbyist-funded junkets, cap foreign trips at seven days and sharply curtail travel underwritten by companies that employ lobbyists.

In addition to the trip to Azerbaijan, Long took two other privately funded international trips in 2013:

• An April 1-7 trip to Turkey at the expense of the Aspen Institute Congressional Program, a nonpartisan educational initiative for lawmakers. The conference focused on a range of foreign policy hotspots, from Syria to Iran. “It’s like a graduate degree in Middle East policy,” Long said of the program.

• A Jan. 24-31 trip to China, sponsored by the National Committee on U.S.-China Relations, a nonprofit group devoted to fostering engagement between the two countries.

Jan Berris, vice president of the committee, said the goal of the congressional trips is to educate lawmakers on the challenges China faces and foster a good rapport between U.S. policymakers and Chinese leaders. She said there are no lobbyists on the trip, but there is an academic scholar on China to answer lawmakers’ questions about the country’s history and culture.

“This is not a boondoggle trip,” Berris said. “I don’t think we even give them any time to shop.”

Long said many of the trips are more like an “endurance test” than a lavish junket.

But Long seemed unaware of who financed his November trip to Azerbaijan, saying he didn’t know anything about Azpod or its role in his trip. He said he thought the trip was paid for by a New York-based international aid organization called the Humpty Dumpty Institute, which helped set the itinerary at the behest of Azpod.

And good-government advocates say some of the free trips are a way for outside interests to shape a lawmaker’s perception about pressing federal issues — and to make them feel indebted when their legislative priorities come up for a vote. They worry that the latest travel tallies are a sign that interest groups are finding new ways to skirt the 2007 limits — and that lawmakers are eagerly going along for the free ride.

“This is turning once again into a major problem and a primary tool of influence peddling for lobbying entities,” said Craig Holman, a lobbyist for Public Citizen, an advocacy group that promotes campaign finance and lobbying reform. He said most outside groups don’t pay for these trips out of the goodness of their heart. They do it because they often get something in return — an accusation Long and others flatly reject.

Many of the trips Long took were not as exotic as his journey to Baku. He went to Baltimore in 2013 and Philadelphia in 2012, for example, to attend conferences hosted by the Heritage Foundation, an influential conservative Washington think tank. The itinerary included policy sessions with Heritage experts on everything from defense spending to the GOP’s anti-poverty agenda, according to Long’s disclosure filings.

Vegas Electronics show

Long has twice attended the Consumer Electronics Association’s annual trade show, hosted in January in Las Vegas. A member of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, Long said the event helped him learn about cutting-edge technology and other issues that come before the panel.

Laura Hubbard, a spokeswoman with the association, said the event offers a venue for lawmakers to “mingle with the people who are driving the American economy.” And it gives policymakers a chance to “see, touch and gain a better understanding of technology and how these products and services may be impacted by the policy debates inside the beltway.”

American companies have “worldwide competition,” Hubbard added, “and we need our government on our side.”

Holman, the Public Citizen lobbyist, has a different view.

“They want something out of that congressman and this is . . . an important tool that well-financed lobbyists can use” to get it, Holman said. Such groups provide a “four-star travel junket” to make sure a lawmaker feels “indebted once he comes back to Congress (and wants) to do something nice for them in return.”

Long said that’s flat-out wrong.

He said he doesn’t get a slanted view on these trips, and he wouldn’t go if he felt conflicted by them.

“You try and look at objectively” every issue that comes up, he said.

Key seat leads to invitations

There’s little question that Long is a magnet for invitations because of his seat on the House Energy and Commerce Committee, which deals with everything from trade policy to health care to energy matters. The electronics association and others said Long’s seat on that panel is why they asked him to sign up for their congressional trips.

“That’s one of the reasons we chose him,” said Joseph Merante, CEO of the Humpty Dumpty Institute, which organized but did not pay for Long’s trip to Azerbaijan. He noted the committee helps set U.S. energy policy and “Azerbaijan is one of the world’s major producers of petroleum, which is very important for the United States.”

The institute works on international development and “making the United Nations more effective,” according to the group’s website. Merante said Azpod, a transportation and construction firm based in Baku, asked them to organize the Azerbaijan trip.

“They’re interested in increasing trade between the U.S. and Azerbaijan, and they think that a good way to promote this is by increasing exchanges between U.S. lawmakers and Azerbaijani lawmakers,” he said. Such trips are a key way for lawmakers “to get information on things they have to make policy decisions on.”

Azpod handled the in-country logistics, he said, but the institute set the itinerary. Like other trips Long took, the list of meetings included a slew of local government officials and Western business executives.

One of the first meetings on the agenda was a “working lunch” with Azpod representatives. That was followed by meetings with leaders in the Azerbaijani parliament, as well as the country’s president and United Nations officials. The delegation also met with representatives of British Petroleum and Chevron.

Long said the trip gave him new insights into that country, a key U.S. ally, and its oil-producing capacity.

The meetings helped him “understand what goes on in that part of the world and their energy policies and what their oil boom is doing,” Long said.

What about Azpod’s role?

“I’m not familiar with who that is,” Long said. “I’m not aware of anybody besides the Humpty Dumpty Institute (that) was in charge of” the trip.